Until fairly recently, individuals consumed audio, video, and other media content in relatively few forms (television, movies, musical albums) from relatively few sources (television stations, movie theaters, radio stations, CDs). However, with the advent of the Internet and an explosion in the availability of low cost electronic consumer products, the forms and potential sources of such content have become much more numerous. Today, individuals can consume such content on computers at home via the internet, on any number of portable devices with memory for storing content, on mobile devices with wireless network connectivity to content, on televisions, in movie theaters, etc. Furthermore, the potential sources of audio, video, and multimedia content are virtually limitless. For instance, subscription-based television network systems, such as cable television, now provide video on demand offering in addition to standard broadcast television. They also allow subscribers to record broadcast television programs and watch them at a time of their own choosing and with the ability to control the content stream, such as by fast forward, skip, pause, rewind, etc.
Even further, almost anyone with a computer can now create and widely publish their own audio, video, and multimedia content on the Internet through such outlets as podcasts, videos published via websites such as myspace.com or youtube.com. Accordingly, both the amount of available content and the specificity of the content has increased dramatically.
As both the volume and specificity of audio, video, and media content increase, it is expected that consumers will increasingly consume such content, including television programs, movies, music videos, podcasts, musical albums, and other audio, video, and multimedia assets at the sub-asset level. That is, for instance, rather than watching an entire baseball game, a consumer may watch only the parts where the team that he roots for is at bat or may only watch a highlight reel of the game. In another example, a viewer may view only the light saber fight scenes from the Star Wars movie series. In yet other examples, a viewer may watch only the sports segment or the weather segment of the evening news program or listen to only a single song from a CD or album.
Presently, the only way a consumer of media content can access a segment of particular interest to that consumer within a media asset is to scan through the asset in a linear fashion, such as by using a fast-forward or rewind function of a media player, to find the desired content.
“Media” refers to the forms in which content may be transmitted. Presently, the most common transmitted media are audio (e.g., music, speech) and visual (photographs, drawings, motion pictures, web pages, animation). These media are typically represented in electronic formats, such as, for example, HTTP, NNTP, UDP, JMS, TCP, MPEG, MP3, wave files, HTML, JPEG, TIFF, and PDF. As transmission technologies become more advanced, however, transmitted media will likely involve other sensory data such as taste, smell and touch.
The decision as to which segments within a complete media item any individual wishes to view, of course, is based on the subject matter of the content of the segment, hereinafter termed contextual information or subject matter. “Contextual information” or “subject matter” refers broadly to the topic or theme of the content and can be virtually anything within the realm of human knowledge, such as baseball, strike out, fast ball, stolen base, mountains, scary, happy, George Carlin, nighttime, cool, winner. The nature and duration of each segment will depend, of course, on the particular ontology.
Furthermore, as is well-known, advertisers often purchase advertisement time or space within media assets such as television programs, web pages, podcasts, and radio programs based on the subject matter of the media. Specifically, advertisers commonly are interested in a particular demographic of media consumers that can range from the very broad to the extremely narrow. For instance, a producer of beer might be interested in a demographic of male media consumers aged 18-45, whereas a producer of anti-aging face cream for women might be interested in a demographic comprising female viewers aged 30-70. The subject matter of a media asset often has a very high correlation to a specific demographic. Therefore, the producer of anti-aging face cream may be much more interested in placing its advertisement in the middle of a soap opera rather than a football competition because the soap opera will be viewed by many more individuals within the demographic that is likely to buy its product than the football competition, even if the football competition has a much larger overall viewing audience than the soap opera.
Thus, not only do individuals expend a significant amount of effort selecting which media assets they consume, but a great deal of effort is expended by media content providers, (e.g., individual television and radio stations, cable, fiber optic and satellite subscription-based television network operators, internet service providers), media content producers (e.g., television and radio program producers, podcasters, website operators) and advertisers in determining what subject matters of such media appeal to particular demographics for advertisement placement and other purposes.